


my world is an illusion, my world with you

by honeyno



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: 2005 World Figure Skating Championships, Angst, Established Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, oh yeah baby 14 years later, strap in i have feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-04
Updated: 2019-06-04
Packaged: 2020-04-07 21:58:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19093924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/honeyno/pseuds/honeyno
Summary: “Are you gonna let me in?”Stéphane’s keeping his voice down but sounds like he’s not about to take no for an answer, and Johnny wants to be clever and say that to his own detriment he’s done that already, but he’s not and he just leaves the door open so Stéphane can follow him inside.





	my world is an illusion, my world with you

**Author's Note:**

> given that all i ever write is skate fics and rpf, this natural progression to finally posting _skate rpf_ is... [pretends to be shocked] 
> 
> anyway, i watched worlds '05 the other day and realized i still have a lot of feelings about this shit so strap in, folks, we're rehashing old tropes and conventions and reviving the OG ships today! off season 2019 is truly insane anyway, i'm just here to add more madness to the mix. 
> 
> happy pride everyone!

It’s quiet, after.

After the arena and the questions from journalists who want to get first dibs on his own personal tragedy, after dinner with his mother who is kind and proud of him anyway and worried for him and _so_ proud, it’s quiet.

Johnny doesn’t cry during any of it but by the time he’s back at his hotel room and sitting at the edge of the bathtub as the shower sprays nearly punishingly hot water on his chest, the insides of his eyelids sting with just the effort of holding back. Running a bath feels too indulgent, and he’s not sure if his body would hoist him back up if he were to curl up on the floor of the tub like he wants to, so that’s what he’s got: a not quite shower, something just close enough to being a bath that it’s disappointing in its insufficiency.

As far as metaphors go, it’s pretty damn stupid. The bath is the podium and the edge he’s perched on is 3 points during the short, is _not quite._ It’s a stupid metaphor, and the water is getting cooler and the damp tips of Johnny’s hair are all the way in his eyes.

He sits there until the water turns completely cold, which shouldn’t be happening at a hotel as decent as this one but clearly he’s done something to wrong the Universe and the bitch is out for revenge, and only drags himself out to grab a towel when his feet are cold enough that pain starts giving way to early onset hypothermia and he’s left with no choice.

The towel is large and soft and smells like fresh laundry on a hot summer day and it’s too nice for him and Johnny’s terrified that what finally brings him to tears might just be a goddamn towel, after everything, after the whole goddamn day he’s had.

Instead, he wraps it around his shoulders like an embrace, like a small child playing king with a duvet cape, and trudges out of the bathroom and into the room which is just as messy as when he left it with a promise to himself that he’d have the energy to clean after he showers. He doesn’t, so he averts his eyes from where today’s costume is draped over the back of an armchair in its garment bag, and continues his quest for his bed when he hears the knock.

It’s singular and tentative and doesn’t register as a knock at first so Johnny dismisses it as something from another room, maybe, until it returns, twice this time, like the opening for a bad joke.

“Who’s there?” he supplies under his breath, exhaling a humorless laugh in case the Universe’s watching as he makes his way to open the door. He cracks it open just enough to let a little hallway light in so he can peer out and make up for the lack of peephole.

Stéphane is standing outside looking like he showered but took the time to dry his hair, in a long sleeve shirt and sweatpants, and he doesn’t look any different than he did this morning. Johnny’s hand moves to close the door before his mind can catch up to it, as if maybe Stéphane missed the cracking of the door and Johnny can still pretend to be asleep or elsewhere or unavailable.

“Are you gonna let me in?”

Stéphane’s keeping his voice down but sounds like he’s not about to take no for an answer, and Johnny wants to be clever and say that to his own detriment he’s done that already, but he’s not and he just leaves the door open so Stéphane can follow him inside.

“I’m not decent,” Johnny points out, tightening his grip on his towel as he drags himself back into the center of the room, carefully, one step at a time. Stéphane doesn’t laugh, doesn’t quip back, and the silence between them hangs heavy, unusual. “Why are you here?”

“Wanted to check on you,” Stéphane says, like it’s that simple, and Johnny wants to insist that he’s fine; the sharp, bitter demon part of him wants to ask Stéphane if he shouldn’t be out partying, but he steps wrong before he can do any of that and he winces, hissing through his teeth as he throws one arm out for balance as if he’s saving a bad landing.

Stéphane catches it instead, right below his elbow, and suddenly he’s behind Johnny, too close, and Johnny’s towel is slipping pathetically off his other shoulder, and he’s most of the way to nude and so very tired.

“You should be celebrating.”

When it does come out, it has none of the edge Johnny had anticipated, none of the bile. It sounds like an apology, and Stéphane is still holding his arm. From the way he inhales, long and steady, Johnny knows without seeing that he’s shaking his head.

“I wanted to see you,” he repeats, and Johnny doesn’t have the energy or the desire to fight it anymore. He pulls his elbow away and sighs, awkwardly pulling the towel back up to his chest as he heads for the suitcase that lays open by his bed. 

“Let me get dressed at least?”

“It’s nothing I haven’t seen before.”

Any other day, Johnny would indulge him, would put on a show while pretending to be unaware that he’s being watched; he can imagine dropping the towel as an invitation and not even reaching for a change of clothes from his bag. Tonight, he’s strategizing how to step into his underwear without losing balance again, and the thought of being watched makes his skin crawl.

“Just— please.”

He listens to Stéphane move and when he glances over his shoulder, he’s perched on the arm of the armchair, toying absently with the zipper of the garment bag, and pointedly looking away. Johnny sighs and steels himself, manages to get into a pair of briefs and the large t-shirt he sleeps in without losing any more of his dignity.

“Did they give you shots?” Stéphane asks once Johnny mutters an _okay, I’m good_ and Stéphane can turn around to look at him, to truly take in the sight that he is as he stands at the foot of his bed with his hair dripping uncomfortably onto his shoulders.

“I didn’t want the shots,” Johnny says defensively, like he already knows he sounds and looks stupid.

“You’re in pain,” Stéphane observes, and Johnny lets out a bitter laugh because yeah, no shit, it’s the foot but it’s shooting up his calf now, somehow, and he doesn’t want to begin thinking about what that means and he just wants to sleep, and Stéph has better places to be and—

And then Stéph is crossing the room to sit on Johnny’s bed and he stretches himself out with his back against the headboard, and he’s patting the covers next to him and beckoning,

“Come here,” like he owns the damn room.

“I’m really not in the mood.”

“ _Johnny,_ ” his name on Stéphane’s lips has sounded many ways but this is new, this cocktail of fond and exasperated and worried, just at the edge of it, at where he punches the syllables out like he’s trying to win an argument in one word. “Just come sit with me.”

Johnny does, because he can only be so stubborn, and because he needs to be sitting down.

They sit next to each other, legs stretched out, half a pillow of distance between them for a while and Johnny listens to Stéphane breathe while Stéphane, to his credit, asks no questions.

He doesn’t need to ask to know that Johnny is in pain and unhappy and exhausted, and Johnny knows that for all of his exuberance and pride, Stéphane is secretly too thoughtful to talk about his own joy unprompted.

“Are you gonna stay a moment?” Johnny asks finally, when his chest gets too tight and he needs words to leave his body along with air in order to feel present again.

“Do you want me to stay?”

Johnny’s eyes are burning threateningly again, for the millionth time this evening, as he nods and instead of _please_ says, “Can you get the light?”

Stéphane reaches for the lamp at the bedside table and as the room falls into near perfect darkness, Johnny lets himself shift closer, close enough that his fingers could brush Stéph’s wrist if he moved them just a little.

It’s not like what they do happens in the dark. What they do happens in sunlit hotels and under the fluorescent lights of nameless locker rooms, in stray touch when there’s company — at banquets and parties and with friends watching, friends who assume nothing or know not to ask. Johnny’s old enough to not need darkness to embolden his search for closeness, not with Stéphane, but tonight feels different and precious, like the last card you place at the top of a house of cards. He reaches for Stéphane’s hand so carefully, like he’s not still carrying the marks Stéphane left right under his collarbone immediately after practice just a few days ago, like the smallest of touch could destroy him.

When he does cover Stéphane’s hand with his own, Stéphane exhales a single sharp breath and Johnny wonders if he feels it, too, that weird electricity between them and the weight of everything they’re not saying because they can’t, because maybe it’s not dark enough.

“I watched you,” Johnny whispers eventually, while Stéph’s maneuvering so he can take his hand, so he can hold rather than just allow to be held. “From the stands, with everyone, and they— I could feel everyone just— no one could look away from you. You were incredible.”

“I popped my axel,” Stéphane argues, and he laughs incredulously, like it’s the stupidest thing that’s ever happened to him. “And the flip—”

“You _won_.”

Johnny closes his eyes as he interrupts him, listens for any bitterness that might sneak its way into his voice, and it isn’t there. He has many things to be angry at, many people, and there’s jealousy somewhere in all of it, but none of it is for Stéphane.

Beside him, Stéphane draws in a breath and mutters,

“ _Huh—_ ” as if he’s just now coming to a realization, something that has never occurred to him before. “I won.”

Johnny laughs then, and it feels like someone has stuck their hands right at his sternum and is prying his ribcage open like a window that’s been painted shut for years.

“Yeah,” he breathes, and he doesn’t let go of Stéphane’s hand when he rolls halfway over and presses himself against Stéphane’s side to kiss him. He stays close, matching his breath with Stéphane’s as his free hand traces the spot where Stéphane’s jaw trails behind his ear. “You won, and you’re— fucking undeniable. Some people are saying it was a surprise but it’s not, I _knew._ ”

Stéphane keeps laughing at him, at his praise, quietly and as if it’s still not quite real.

“You should’ve been there,” he replies, and it’s all Johnny has been thinking on gross, cruel loop in his mind for hours, spoken into the darkness of his room in Stéphane’s blunt, earnest tone. It’s not an accusation but it stings like one and Johnny’s hand stills, though he doesn’t pull away.

“I’m sorry,” he says, and he’d sound sharp had his voice not cracked over the words.

He feels Stéphane shake his head under his hand but Stéphane says nothing, and Johnny withdraws just a little, until he can rearrange his body to rest comfortably against his side.

It’s a few minutes of silence before Stéph stirs, and Johnny thinks he’ll leave now, quiet goodbyes and slipping out to sleep alone, a familiar routine despite its different circumstances. Instead, he moves to get his arm around Johnny’s shoulders, anchoring him in his spot as he asks, tentative now,

“Can I stay?”

Johnny knows he’s supposed to say no. He says no every time, and then apologizes with a bitter smile over breakfast, but he’s been denied enough today and he gets to be selfish just this once, gets to get one thing he wants. So he sighs and nods, and Stéphane relaxes in response, tightens his grip around him to pull him in.

Johnny’s half-drifting when he feels him move again and then feels the comforting weight of the covers over them. He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything else, and vaguely hopes that if Stéphane can feel that spot on his own shoulder where his shirt is not quite dry, he’d attribute it to Johnny’s damp hair and not anything else.

 

**Author's Note:**

> the title of this fic is from isak danielson's song playing love. 
> 
> i thrive on comments so please drop a word or two down there if you made it this far/you wanna make me stick around in this fs rpf hellhole i've dug for myself


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